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Hot sand sears the sole of Katsuki’s feet as he steps out of the shade of the parasol and into the sun, white-hot and blinding. Squinting his eyes, he raises his arms to shade his eyes, and as he does the sound of a shutter goes off behind him.
“Izuku,” he says, sounding amused — the amused-weary combination that is the kind of voice he uses when he’s too happy to dredge up his usual antagonism.
Behind him, Izuku giggles. Katsuki turns on the spot to look at him, ignoring the pain in his feet. Izuku is sitting on the mat they’ve bought from the market, bright red and green, coloured like a watermelon. It hadn’t been the one Katsuki chose, but Izuku had held up the mat, grin wide, and Katsuki found his opinion hardly mattered.
“Sorry,” Izuku laughs, breathless in the way he always sounds, holding his camera close to his chest protectively. Even then, he still raises the camera one more time to take another photo of Katsuki’s raised eyebrow, and crossed arms. “I would promise that’s the last photo, but I’d be lying.”
Katsuki steps back under the parasol and plops onto the mat, getting sand everywhere as he kicks it with his feet. Izuku frowns and whines something about sand on his lens cap, but Katsuki has already made sure not to get any on it. He’s — he’s always this kind of way with Izuku.
(Maybe not always — god, maybe not always, not forever. Shame digs its claws into Katsuki every time he remembers, vice grips on his heart. Not always, but from now on. A reminder.)
Izuku grips his camera in his hand right hand and uses his left to brush the hair back from his forehead. He’s also always this way. Heart on his sleeve. So easy to hurt.
So easy to like.
Katsuki takes the camera from him with two hands, gentle in a way he isn’t usually. He raises the magnifier to his eyes and takes a picture of just that, of Izuku’s confused, amused expression, the corners of his mouth quirking upwards in delight. His eyes are wide and his grin is light.
The picture comes out with the colours so vivid it’s almost real. Katsuki hands the camera back to him and helps him put the strap around his neck, watches it stick to the pale skin, chafe it a slight pink.
“You’re not too bad,” says Izuku, scrolling through the photos.
“I pointed a camera and clicked it,” snarks Katsuki, but his eyes are creased at the corner in the way they always do when he talks with Izuku, the smile his body can’t help but wear in Izuku’s presence.
(There was a time when the crease was between his eyebrows, furrowed with hatred. Sometimes, Katsuki doesn’t know how a person can change so much, but he has. They have.)
“Stop it,” Izuku giggles, and takes off the strap, hiding the camera under a clean, white towel. He makes sure the straps are neatly tucked in before he pushes off the mat and into the sun, blinding bright. He turns back to smile and Katsuki, eyes crinkling, a question on the tip of his tongue that he doesn’t need to lend voice too. Katsuki stands, stretching out his knees, wriggling his toes deeper into the coarse sand beneath his feet, feeling shells and sticks scrape the sole.
Izuku holds his hand and Katsuki’s heart does this thing where it breaks and sticks itself back together all by itself.
(Izuku used to be too afraid to look him in the eye. Katsuki had deserved it.)
He takes his hand, and Izuku tugs him along the beach, further and further past the sleepy allure of the parasol and the shade and the salty tang in the back of his throat from the breeze. When the soft sand gives way to the wet sand where the tide reaches, Izuku wriggles his toes into the sand and pulls back from his footprints, leaping lightly away, like he’s left his mark.
“Come on,” says Izuku, pulling him towards the mark. “Put yours there too.”
Rolling his eyes, Katsuki obliges, planting his foot next to Izuku’s smaller one. Izuku laughs in appreciation, the laugh rolling and delightful, the too-big one that sounds like mid-afternoon. The tide washes it away on the next come up, filling up their prints with water and pulling sand into it, but Izuku just shrugs and dances into the water, eyes turning into crescents at the coolness.
When they’ve gone out far enough, Katsuki can feel the sea currents cool on his feet and dancing about on his legs. He finds himself letting himself sink, chasing after the tendrils of the sea, but when he comes back up Izuku laughs at his wet hair and tosses water onto his face, grinning when Katsuki wipes the salt from his eyes and sputters indignantly.
There are the beginnings of a sunburn on Izuku’s shoulders. Katsuki snorts at him and doesn’t retaliate, choosing to duck underneath quickly and letting the next wave smack Izuku in the face, unprepared as he was.
Katsuki surfaces to Izuku’s hair sticking to his forehead and a uttered sigh as he wipes his face, trying to rid his eyes of the saltwater. His eyes are red when he’s done, but he doesn’t seem too bothered.
(Back then, Izuku smelt like saltwater every day, and his eyes were red-rimmed not because he’d been having fun. Katsuki should stop remembering what was before and what is after, but he finds everything becomes so clear when he does.)
Izuku reaches out to him and Katsuki swims forward the few metres they’ve been separated. One hand on his shoulder, Izuku lets him support most of his weight. He’s not just suspended in the water, and Katsuki finds himself taking several steps back to where he could stand, toes curling in the sand, but Izuku couldn’t.
The man turns to him, eyes bright. He smiles that smile that’s too fond, too bright, for everything. They’re in the sea, where the sun is loud and the water glitters just that touch that borders on painful when it meets your eyes. The world is cast in shades of bright blue. Katsuki tastes salt on his lips and can feel his back heating up as he stays above the water, but Izuku leans on his shoulder and one hand finds its way onto Izuku’s hip, holding him steady.
The world shrinks down to the two of them in a bright blue sea, feet and legs hitting each other as Izuku treaded water.
(Before and after. Izuku’s his best friend now. The kind of friendship that comes with growing up.)
“Are you hungry?” Izuku asks, hands gentle when they reach out of the water and onto Katsuki’s face, turning it to him. “I asked the concierge where the best place to eat local was.”
“Hmm?” Katsuki gives a non-committal reply, because he knows Izuku is going to tell him anyway. He also knows he’s going to go anyway, even if the place is miles away.
(Don’t think of this as Katsuki trying to atone for — everything before. Atonement came and took his hand when Katsuki had, at three in the morning, found himself sitting outside Izuku’s porch, staring at a dark sky. There had been no stars that night, just an overly bright moon.)
Izuku grins wordlessly at him. Izuku has very different smiles. Katsuki knows the meaning of them all. The wordless one is when he’s thinking of the before.
Katsuki tightens his grip on Izuku’s waist and takes steps towards the shore. It fits so nicely there, he doesn’t let go until he’s realised he’s staring at the red and green mat, and Izuku is slipping away by his own accord.
It had been five years ago, three years after. Katsuki had convinced Izuku to come up to the roof with him, and they had sat on the flat concrete ground, their jeans getting scuffed and shirts going grey when they’d lied back without a mat.
Izuku had pointed out some stars he swore were part of constellations, even if there was no way he could actually tell. Katsuki had snickered and they’d gone quiet, until Izuku sat up — so suddenly, Katsuki sat up too, concerned.
He had turned to look at him, eyebrows furrowed. He placed a hand on Katsuki’s chest and said, in the tight, pinched voice Katsuki knew too well (before before before), “you know you’re my best friend, right?”
Katsuki’s eyes widened.
Izuku breathed in deep, then laughed. It’s the sort of laugh you do when you’re relieved. It sounded like a midmorning laugh, when the sun was high enough for it to get hot out.
“Yeah,” he said, as though he couldn’t quite believe it either. He looked at his hands. “You’re my best friend.”
He sounded more convinced when he said it the second time, then he’d laughed, delighted, as though he’d come to a profound realisation.
And that’s what they are. Izuku is Katsuki’s best friend, has been Katsuki’s best friend for five years now. It’d been a surprise, then it’d been a given. Now Katsuki wakes knowing they’re best friends.
Thailand is hot. Phuket is never not welcoming, not with the beach and the sea and the breeze on his face, though. They wander out of the resort and Izuku gets all his directions muddled up the way he always does.
“Do you have any idea where we’re going?” Katsuki asks, watching the man turn this way and that.
Izuku looks up at him, grins slightly. “Sure,” he says. “I’m positive it’s this way.”
Katsuki huffs, the fond little huff he reserves for Izuku and his little ways. Their slippered feet slap against the ground, Izuku greets every person he sees with a hushed sawatdi khrap, even if they aren’t Thai.
He almost always gets a response, because that’s who Izuku is. He could smile at you and you’d just love him, because there’s nothing he hides from anybody. His heart isn’t just on his sleeve, it’s plastered all over, stitched into his jacket, tucked into his pockets. He wears it on the sole of his shoes and twitch of his lips, on the tips of his fingers and the breathed syllables of his words.
Izuku takes Katsuki’s arm and drags him forward the last couple of metres to a restaurant that’s tucked in the corner of the street, not too inconspicuous that you’d miss it, but hidden enough for it to not be too crowded. It’s also late in the day, a three in the afternoon that tells him they might not be hungry for dinner.
“Told you it was this way,” teases Izuku as they sit on plastic chairs, propping his chin up with his hands. His tank top slips a little, and there’s definitely a sunburn there, the idiot. “I’m gonna get something with lime.”
“Thought you didn’t like sour things,” says Katsuki, peering at the entirely Thai menu. He decides just to point.
“I don’t,” Izuku concedes. “But it’s so hot out.”
The Thai woman that comes over to take their orders smiles at them kindly and Izuku beams back the grin that’s too wide for his face. When he’s too happy, sometimes Izuku doesn’t even smile. It might sound paradoxical, but Katsuki understands. Sometimes there’s joy you cannot express. They order by pointing at random things on the menu and ordering what he knew. Katsuki gets a coconut preemptively, and sure enough, Izuku takes two sips of his shaved lime drink and tries to look like he’s enjoying it, but he’s — he’s not. It’s obvious.
“I don’t really like coconut,” starts Katsuki. He blinks and their drinks are swapped. Izuku holds the coconut in his hands sheepishly and Katsuki finds the laugh bubbles out of him like a soft drink shaken too many times and cracked open.
(It’s the one that only Izuku hears.)
The food they have ordered is delicious — warm and fresh, presumably because they’re the only ones here so late. He gives Izuku the last of the prawn cakes, swears when the pork he bites into is too spicy. Izuku laughs as his face turns red — but he sweats buckets when he tries to eat it.
Their laughter fills the establishment. That’s why they’re here, after all. Why Izuku had stolen Katsuki away from his job and onto a vacation just the two of them, promise you’ll have a great time. There is very little out there Katsuki would refuse Izuku, the idea of a vacation isn’t one. They’d both been so busy with their work and their jobs and school and it’d been a whole month since he’d last seen Izuku, before Izuku had dropped by unannounced and asked him overseas.
Now they are here, wooden table digging into Katsuki’s forearm, their feet knocking under the table. Izuku’s smile is not any duller than it had been five years ago, significantly brighter than ten years ago. Katsuki finishes the lime thing Izuku ordered — it’s surprisingly good, then they pay the bill and stumble out of the establishment, laughing at the way Izuku nearly trips on the doorstop on the way out.
They wander the streets till Katsuki’s feet are sore. Izuku takes photos of everything, from the woman on the motorcycle to the way Katsuki’s nose scrunches when he smells the salted fish another is selling. Katsuki tugs the camera out of his hands and Izuku laughs when the photos he gets all end up blurry.
“For fuck’s sake, I’m holding this right,” grouses Katsuki, holding the thing up and peering at its base like it would help him discover the problem.
“It’s not only in how you hold it,” giggles Izuku. “I set the shutter speed down way slow.”
Katsuki fiddles with the camera. Izuku pries it out of his hands and changes the settings, before handing it back. Surprising the two of them, Katsuki grabs hold of Izuku before he slips away entirely and pulls him back, turning the camera around to face him.
They take the photo blind, Izuku pressed up against Katsuki’s side, hiding his smile in Katsuki’s hair. Although Izuku is viewed from the side, his smile is still bigger, more effortless than Katsuki’s own. Of course. Izuku was born to smile, Katsuki had learnt to smile. The picture comes out blurry, but their contentment is obvious, seen in every smear of the light and the tilt of the image.
There’s a word he likes to use. Contentment, content. Katsuki would have said, ten years ago, that yeah, sure, he was content. Because it’s a funny little word he’s not sure if he’s using right, but he thinks he is now. Because the word content implies satisfaction. It suggests the fact that you desire not to move forward or backwards with anything because the way things are fill you with a sense of peace, of rest, of contentment. That things are fine the way they are.
Right now, he’s on a vacation in Thailand with a man who has the biggest heart the world has ever seen, who could find it in him to forgive someone unforgivable. Katsuki is very content.
Now that the sun has started to dip below the horizon, they make their way back to the resort, filling up on street food, on glutinous rice and mango and what they call pancakes, but it reminds Katsuki of roti prata back in Singapore. They delay going back to their villa, preferring instead to walk out onto the beach and stand just above the place where the sea meets the sand. Privately, Katsuki thinks Izuku looks prettiest at sunset, even though in every way, from the way he smiles (slowly, like a light on a dimmer, then all at once), to the way he is (quiet yet loud, a paradox of noise, existence), he is a sunrise.
But sunset — sunset is when the purple comes out to play, to highlight the edge of his jaw and the slope of his neck. It’s when the pink complements the blush high on his cheekbones. It’s when the Izuku always stops to look at the way the sun drowns in the sea, and in the dark, once all you can see is the flash of white teeth in the dimness and the glimmer of two brown eyes, it’s the time you feel the most powerful.
Time stops when the day hovers between dark and light. You blink, and it restarts.
Tick, tock, tick tock. Izuku watches the sun from the beach, transfixed. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Only a sliver of the sun is left, the sand turning cold beneath their feet. The sea laps onto the beach, climbing steadily higher. Still, they watch the sun.
Izuku steps closer to Katsuki and again, on instinct, his hand comes up and he slings it across Izuku’s back, holding onto his waist. Izuku’s head rests on his chest and shoulder.
Time stops.
The sound of the sea increases in volume. Tiny little crabs start to scuttle their way across the beach. Time does not move for the two of them, best friends because one is capable of superhuman love, and the other capable of superhuman change.
Izuku is warm in his hands.
Katsuki stares down at the way his dark hair moves in the sea breeze, the way his eyes are also staring unfixed on the horizon. He blinks.
The sun vanishes.
Time starts.
Darkness shrouds them. Izuku becomes but a waif in the night time, the last vestiges of dim blue illuminating his face. Suddenly, he looks very young.
Izuku pulls back from him and takes a deep, steadying breath. Then he says, “let’s go home.”
When they get back to their villa, it’s been tidied up. No longer are their clothes strewn all over the floor, haphazard in their race to get out first thing in the morning. He’d be lying if he says he doesn’t miss it — something about the mess made the villa seem more permanent, more lived in, more real.
Katsuki takes the first shower and comes out of the bath smelling like lemongrass and coconut and all those hotel toiletries you always use because they’re free and they’re Asian. Izuku is lying, spread-eagle on his bed, flicking through his phone. His hair is spread out like a halo. He looks up as Katsuki enters.
“All done?” He asks, and Katsuki nods.
He wants to spend his time waiting for Izuku to be done so they can turn out the lights playing mindless games on his phone, but he gets a Face-Time call from Eijirou he can’t help but pick up.
“Kaaatsuki!” Eijirou calls, his eyes bright. His hair is dyed pink this time. “Are you having fun? You look rested.”
“Sure,” Katsuki grunts. “Would be nicer if you left me the fuck alone.”
Eijirou blinks, then bursts into laughter. Eijirou laughs differently from Izuku — he laughs like the burst of a volcano, loud and raucous. He’s pleased, though, Katsuki can tell from the way his eyes are squinting shut at the ends, as is wont to happen when Eijirou is so joyous his face crumples from trying to show it.
“Izuku been alright then? It’s been a while since we last saw him. Tell him to come over more! I was beginning to think you guys had a fight.”
A fight.
Izuku and Katsuki fight, as best friends do. Yet the word fight dredges up memories of before, before everything. He bites down on his bottom lip.
(Eijirou wasn’t there for the before. He only knows the after. Katsuki wonders, if Eijirou knew the before, would he still be here?)
“Fuck no,” Katsuki wrinkles his nose. “A fight. No, shit, no. We’re just busy.”
“Busy,” says Eijirou wistfully. He leans in close. “It’s been two days. You discovered anything about yourself yet?”
Katsuki sneers at him. “No,” he says. “This ain’t a spiritual holiday, sakura.”
“Alright,” Eijirou tugs on his hair and sticks his tongue out. “First of all, my hair colour is the best. Secondly, it doesn’t have to be a spiritual holiday for you to learn something.”
Katsuki sighs. He can hear the shower water shutting off, and the glass door opening. “I learnt you’re annoying,” offers Katsuki.
“Shut up,” Eijirou chuckles. “You knew that already. Izuku almost done showering then? Could tell by the light in your eyes. Went on like someone just came home.”
Katsuki narrows his eyes at him. He feels, suddenly, like he is waiting on Eijirou to explain. He doesn’t like the feeling of waiting on somebody’s heels, for somebody else to tell him what they think.
“Yeah,” he says. “So goodbye!”
Eijirou sputters and hastily opens his mouth to speak. “Woah woah woah wait! I’m just trying to say, maybe you should really think about this! What Izuku means to you, you know?”
The walls seem to close in on him with every word Eijirou says, filling him with an intense anxiety he does not know where it comes from.
“Izuku is my best friend,” stresses Katsuki, his heart hammering wildly. His tongue feels too big for his mouth. “What — what the fuck are you trying to suggest?”
Eijirou holds his phone in one hand and props his chin up with the other. “Nothing,” he says, but he sounds so insincere Katsuki can only sit up in bed. “Nothing. Go to sleep, Katsuki. You’re overthinking this.”
He doesn’t know what he’s overthinking.
The bathroom door opens, and a burst of steam emerges. Izuku’s hair is damp again and hangs down low into his eyes. He smiles at Katsuki, warm and bright and real.
“Hello,” says Katsuki, as though he’d just run a marathon.
Izuku raises an eyebrow at him, but laughs all the same. “Hello,” he replies. “The water pressure is amazing.”
“Yeah,” Katsuki hangs up on Eijirou quietly, texting him a goodbye instead. Izuku puts a towel on his pillow and flops into his bed, his pyjamas rustling.
“You’re tired,” Izuku rolls over and smiles at him. “You can turn off the lights first. I’ll use my phone for a bit.”
Katsuki nods wordlessly and turns out the light with the master switch at his bedside. The world stops, suspended in the darkness and the white light from Izuku’s phone.
He can’t sleep.
He stays awake, eyes blinking as they adjust to the room, making out the shapes and the signs of the night. The distant rolling of the sea can still be heard from outside their window. He stays awake until Izuku puts down his phone and sets it to charge by his bedside. He stays awake until Izuku stops tossing and turning, after which he sits up and looks over at Katsuki. He slams his eyes shut.
Izuku slips out from his bed rolls into Katsuki’s, the twin beds having been put together such that they practically form one large bed. He rolls over until his back is pressed against Katsuki’s.
They’re twenty-five. They’re twenty-five, and too old for games. They’re twenty-five, and Katsuki is so, so tired of pretending they’re just best friends.
(Because what are best friends? People closer than family? Someone who chose to be by your side and to love you and hate you? Izuku is his best friend, but he doesn’t even know what that means, just knows what it makes him do. Love. Before and after.)
He guesses it’s true, as Katsuki rolls onto his side, to loop an arm around Izuku’s waist and pull him closer, that everything is so much easier to do in the dark.
When he wakes up, it’s late morning. He hurries out of the door, pulling on a shirt, because he’s going to miss breakfast. From the text Izuku left him, he’d woken up only ten minutes ago and headed to the restaurant first so he wouldn’t disturb him. Today is their last full day in Thailand. He catches Izuku on his way back to the villa, and Izuku comes back with him to nurse another cup of juice and wave off concerns that he could already be putting on sunblock and going into the water.
“I’d rather spend my time with you,” says Izuku, shyly. The apples of his cheek burn a bright red. “That is what I came here for. Why I asked you here.”
Katsuki pauses with a spoon halfway to his face.
“I missed you,” says Izuku, sounding a little helpless, a little lost. He gestures vaguely in the air before he takes a deep breath and sighs. “Yeah.”
Katsuki puts down his spoon. He too takes a deep breath. In the exposing light of the sun, where the day sought to write down every thing he did like he was being scrutinised, the words don’t come easy. But he says it anyway, because it’s Izuku. He’d say a lot of things because it’s Izuku.
“Fuck,” he whispers. “I missed you too.”
(Katsuki missed Izuku even during the before, when he didn’t have him. When Izuku was not even a person to him. He realises it now. Maybe he’s gone his whole life missing him.)
He says I missed you like he intended to say something else. His tongue posed to form different syllables. His entire body trembling, waiting for the bomb to drop. Instead he swallows down the sentiment with a gulp of orange juice, the sour tang taking away his voice.
Izuku startles. He looks up at Katsuki, eyes unreadable. It makes him uncomfortable. Katsuki has always been able to read Izuku, like they were two pages of a book side-by-side each other.
They both look like they’re going to say something more.
They both don’t.
Katsuki barely remembers what happened after, because everything felt so tense he’d nearly jumped out of his own skin, burning up from the inside. They’d slept in separate beds that night. He woke up every hour, and Izuku never moved. Why does he feel cold?
He barely remembers the drive to the airport, immigration, waiting to board.
When he snaps out of it, he’s sitting on the plane. Izuku’s head is resting on his shoulder, but he’s not asleep. He’s just…waiting. Katsuki wants to tell him something but he himself doesn’t know what, just that he’s anticipating the day he finally does. Because they’re best friends and this is what best friends do. They miss each other when they don’t see each other. It’s — it’s what best friends do.
Izuku takes his head off his shoulder and looks down at his lap.
Katsuki feels like sand is slipping through his fingers, like he’s trying to catch a waterfall in the palm of his hand. Izuku looks at him out of the corner of his eyes.
They look sad.
That’s the only thing Katsuki takes away from the plane. That Midoriya Izuku had looked at him, and he’d been sad.
Emotions are a fickle, fickle thing. Katsuki sits in his apartment and looks at the wall. He’s got a bunch of photos in his phone from Izuku, photos they’d taken over the trip. His favourite is still the blurry one they took together, pressed up in the marketplace, twin grins in the bad lighting.
He watches it, watches it carefully. Wonders why Izuku had looked so morose. Wondered why Eijirou had asked him what Izuku meant to him.
Of course Izuku meant something. They were best friends, they were more than that, perhaps. Two people who shouldn’t be together but are.
(They were more than that? Were they? Were they always more than that?)
His apartment feels lonely without the sound of midday laughter echoing about the walls. He keeps scrolling through the pictures, sees the galaxies and the nebulas Izuku held in his palms and his eyes and the change of his smile. Izuku always feels so raw and real, like touching a live wire. Katsuki feels kind of one-dimensional, compared to him.
He misses — something. There’s something missing in the photographs. Something —
Katsuki stands up and moves to the door, pulling on his coat. He throws open the door.
Izuku opens up his apartment at one in the morning to see Katsuki standing outside, what must be a sorry sight with his hair messed up and his cheeks burnt bright red from the cold.
“Something’s missing,” he says, and holds out his phone. “There’s something missing from the photographs. What is it?”
Izuku stares helplessly at him while ushering him into his house. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean,” Katsuki has never been good with words. Never. “I mean, I miss — not,” he grinds his teeth in frustration. “We’re best friends,” he continues. Izuku blinks at him. “We’re best friends, but —“
Izuku’s eyes soften. He takes Katsuki’s hands and holds them in his own, smiling that — Katsuki recognises it. The one where the grin doesn’t spread so far across his face but it reaches his eyes anyway, a delicate up of his lips that boasts of tenderness.
“But I love you,” he says and there it is. What he hadn’t been prepared to say a week ago. It’s kind of anticlimactic, now that it’s out there, because, fuck, yes, Katsuki loves him. Katsuki’s loved him since the first day Izuku took his hand and said in that choked off voice, “we’re best friends.”
Ever since after became reality, not a feeling.
Izuku clutches onto his hands tighter. “Katsuki,” he says, but then he stops short. He squeezes his eyes shut. “I love you too,” he says, and sounds so overjoyed it’s no longer midday sun but that same sun they saw at the beach — the first day, when they weren’t that tired and could still get up to see the sunrise.
(The sunrise is where wishes are born. His mother used to say he’d been born at sunrise, when the night bled into the day, that’s why he got his mother’s red eyes and bright hair.)
Katsuki blinks dumbly at him. Izuku reaches up and kisses his forehead, leaning forward on the tips of his toes to do so. One in the morning, but the sun is out. One in the morning, but it’s so bright Katsuki can’t tear his eyes away.
(They’re best friends. They still are best friends. That didn’t have to change.)
“Come,” says Izuku, and pulls him into his room. “It’s late. Would you,” he hesitates. “Would you stay?”
Katsuki opens his mouth. He wants to say yes, instead he only nods.
Izuku beams at him. “That’s,” he starts, and holds onto Katsuki’s wrists. “That’s nice,” he says, and he sounds a little like he’s crying.
Katsuki tugs him into him, closing his arms around his back. Izuku holds onto him and laughs, the watery sort of laugh he does when he’s overwhelmed. He presses butterfly kisses to the slope of Katsuki’s neck.
(Katsuki learns it can drizzle while it’s sunny out, but it doesn’t make the day any less beautiful. Sometimes it gives rainbows.)